Implementation of the national register of suicide attempts as a preliminary strategy for the prevention of suicides in Poland

Abstract

Studies show that suicide attempts are a major independent predictor of suicide. Only in some countries of the world, there are national registers of these behaviors. Poland is among the countries where suicide prevention is at the stage of implementation of these strategies. One is the initial diagnosis of the prevalence of suicidal behavior (SB) in selected populations. The aim of the study was to assess the prevalence of SB in Poland on the basis of available databases, including data such as age, sex and mental disorders and the analysis of differentiation of selected indicators of SB.

Material and methods

We analyzed available registers of completed suicides (CS) and suicide attempts (SA), carried out under reporting of the central statistical office (CSO, in the general population, based on death certificates), Police Headquarters (PH, the number of reported SB in the country) and the Institute of Psychiatry and Neurology in Warsaw (IPiN, the number of SB in all psychiatric institutions) and the department of adolescent psychiatry in Łódź (SB among hospitalized youth).

Results and conclusions

Reported data on dissemination of SB in Poland are incomplete, which may affect the reliability of the assessment of the effectiveness of implemented strategies for the prevention of suicides. The aim should be to create a central register of SB, which will not only gather a well-defined data but also monitor how it is obtained.

Disclosure of interest

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.